Christina Garner needs our help. She has been fighting a court case over the last year and is running an appeal for donations so that she can continue the fight.

If you haven’t been following this case, it is against a notorious author/box set promoter/marketer/”mastermind” teacher who goes by the name of Rebecca Hamilton – and also runs other author businesses like OTOH Books (formerly GenreCrave).

The name of Rebecca Hamilton may be familiar to you – and if it’s not, ask around. Because of the various suits and countersuits also involve claims of defamation, I can’t go into detail on what happened, but you can read Christina Garner’s eye-opening account on her GoFundMe page.

The most recent legal developments are as follows: as you can read on Christina’s page, Rebecca Hamilton lost her Motion to Quash this lawsuit. Rebecca Hamilton then filed a crazy countersuit against Christina Garner…

I first started hearing about Curiosity Quills Press in 2016, because of its unusual early termination fees. Not that early termination fees themselves are unusual (unfortunately): I see them fairly often in contracts I’m asked to evaluate (and they are always a red flag; here’s why).

What makes CQ’s fees unusual is that they’re part of an annual event. This is outlined on CQ’s website, and also in its contract:

On the surface this may seem like a publisher being flexible and author-friendly–a get-out-of-jail-if-not-exactly-free procedure that authors can follow in a guaranteed and orderly manner. In fact, such provisions often work to the detriment of both authors and publishers–publishers because escape clauses may incentivize early departure, including by authors they’d rather keep; and authors because the costs can be enormous (not to mention unverifiable, if the publisher charges a flat fee or provides no supporting invoices). Plus, publishers can and do abuse termination fees–for instance, by terminating the contracts of writers who’ve pissed them off and demanding the fee even though termination wasn’t the writer’s decision.

It’s been too long, dear readers, since I’ve posted about any sort of bad behavior in the book community. But before we commence, the 28th is rapidly approaching and you all need to download any books purchased from Samhain because they are closing for real on that date.

Now, let’s talk about another ebook publisher, namely EC for Books, previously known as Ellora’s Cave. It is now dead and gone but still causing problems for authors as I wrote here, but then it seems that there is also:

And this:

Somebody asks the pertinent question:

So, EC is/isn’t sending 1099s to authors that may or may not have received the royalties claimed in the 1099. It also sounds like Torquere isn’t bothering to send any at all. Ah, the glamorous life of the author. Now, I’ve been wondering what Tina Engler/Jaid Black would come up with next because those ill-gotten royalties aren’t going to last forever.

Yesterday:

Yes, she’s back and selling not one but five ebooks on Amazon, the business she (tried to) blame for her company’s financial woes. Let’s take a look. (Since I started this post she has added three more.)

Now, do you notice anything? Look closer. Closer.

Valentina Antonia? Who? What?

Well that’s really not helpful. And Riley Park? I looked up Riley and this popped up:

Looks like Engler/Black has hidden herself or is trying to hide herself behind a registered agent service. Notice the filing date. Don’t you just love a woman who plans ahead?

“When you create a Wyoming corporation or Wyoming LLC, you are forming a legal entity that does not have the ability to communicate on its own.” Engler/Black has never had any problem not communicating before. “If your business is ever sued…” Uh, we all know she’s more likely to sue than be sued but there is always a second time (the first being Chris Brashears). Add to that no taxes and the anonymity of not having any member names listed anywhere and it does seem that E/B has found her idea of consequence free heaven.

Engler/Black and her mother, Patty Marks, left quite a mess behind them and now it seems that E/B is trying to shake off the consequences of her own actions and start over with a clean slate while the authors she cheated are still trying to recoup their financial losses, republish their books, and maybe deal with a 1099 for money they never collected.

This was the first time in, well, quite a while that she has mentioned EC. And when someone posted their regrets for the closing she had this to say:

“No longer worth it”? Not enough authors left that she wanted to not pay royalties to, I guess. And on a post about the sudden closing of All Romance Ebooks she offered up another excuse:

The “Amazon did it” excuse. Amazon did not not pay EC but EC sure as hell did not pay part of their authors. EC/Jaid Black/Patty Marks never seemed to understand that Amazon wasn’t going to roll over and give them special treatment because they thought they deserved it. Black played the victim for years.

And there were, and still are, plenty who think she is. Or maybe just a weak-minded, dull-witted, easily duped fragile flower.

Aaaannnnd Kevin Weinberg gets it wrong, so wrong, again. Oh, he never got paid but the reasons why were much different than he wants Redditors to believe. They had a falling out over politics for sure but Weinberg was stupid enough to tell her to her FB face that he knew better than she did about racial discrimination. (My sympathies were totally with Black on this one.)

Not surprised he didn’t get paid. Not surprised that it wasn’t his fault. Really, these two were a match made in denial heaven. And speaking of denial heaven, Black posted this today:

So many retorts spring to mind. I do love the “We cannot continue to expend time on an endeavor that provides us with no income” line. Isn’t that what part of your authors were doing? They received no income, EC got the money, the authors got nothing but insults and accusations. I love that Black tries to herself in with the affected authors because we all know that if Amazon doesn’t correct this problem soon that Black/Marks/EC will be receiving money from Amazon and all those other authors won’t.

As we leave, not soon enough, 2016 behind there comes notice another ebook venue is closing. At very, very short notice. KT Grant posted the following on Babbling About Books, and More!

Yesterday at 2pm I received an email in my inbox that most authors like myself, and I assume publishers (both epublished and traditional) received who sold their books at the online book vendor- All Romance Ebooks aka ARe. This email sent shockwaves through the publishing community for not only self-published authors and epublishers, but readers as well who have used ARe’s services for 10 years.

As of midnight on Saturday, December 31, 2016, the All Romance Ebooks site will go dark, aka they’re shutting their doors, and all content there, aka digital books for sale, will no longer be available through their platforms. This means authors and publishers have two days to pull their books off the site, and for readers to download their library of content before midnight on Saturday, or their books they purchased will be lost to them forever.

What has the publishing community raging, including myself is the email All Romance Ebooks, or rather Lori James, the Chief Executive Officer of All Romance Ebooks sent about the sudden closing of ARe. This section below is what has authors, and I assume publishers enraged:

UPDATE: On October 3, 2016, Amazon announced a change in its policies, eliminating nearly all “incentivized” reviews. According to the new policy, reviews (and certain other content) may no longer be posted on products received for free or at a discount in exchange for a review. Amazon’s own Vine Program is an exception to this new rule, and reviewers also continue to be allowed to post reviews on books they have received for free, so long as the book isn’t given in exchange for the review.

In response to Amazon’s announcement, some sellers and clubs changed to a policy that reviews would now be optional and, therefore, permitted under Amazon’s new rules. They also said that because reviews are optional, no disclosure of the freebie/discount would be required. That is NOT correct. The FTC Guidelines still require a disclosure that the item was received for free or at a discount and who provided it, even if the recipient can choose whether or not to write the review. What’s more, Amazon’s executive customer relations staff have stated that a review “tied to” a free or discounted product is not permitted and that making the review optional doesn’t change that.

The rest of this post was written when incentivized reviews were permitted, provided the sellers and reviewers complied with other rules, including those against manipulation.

Crazy quilts are unique and innovative quilts created from scraps of materials. My hope is for a world that uses all the scraps, rough cut diamonds and hidden treasures. I blog to make IPOC authors and their works more accessible.